Don't Panic
by parttimeficwriter
Summary: Ruth hasn't turned up for work and Harry and the rest of Section D are getting increasingly worried...
1. Chapter 1

**Am posting this whilst I have a free 5 minutes. Not beta'd so apologies for any mistakes!**

**Happy Birthday Emma Pea!**

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His eyes strayed from the papers in front of him, again, and settled on the empty work station across the office. He shuffled in his seat and tried to refrain from checking his watch as he looked out across the deserted early morning Grid. She was late, well, actually that wasn't _strictly_ true; she wasn't due to start work until nine o'clock but, in all the time he had known her, she had never once been at her desk later than seven thirty. He'd been bemused at first to find her at her desk so early in the day but, despite her claims that it was easier to commute in early, he secretly understood that she was there because she had nowhere else to be. Just like him. His eyes flicked to the watch that sat heavily on his wrist and he bit down against the irrational fear that was threatening to take residence in his mind as he watched the little hand tick slowly round until it read that it was seven minutes past nine o'clock the Grid was almost full and the day to day hum of the workplace was getting steadily louder. There was still no sign of Ruth and Harry, who had tried to concentrate his mind on the work in front of him, was becoming increasingly concerned every time he looked up and saw her empty desk. He looked from Ruth's desk to the ones closest to her and caught Adam's eye, silently inviting him into his office.

"Close the door," he greeted his young protégé. Adam did as he was bid and stepped further into the room. "Have you heard from Ruth today?"

"No," she said, frowning in slight confusion, "I haven't seen her yet. I thought she was probably in the registry or something."

"She's not here yet," Harry confirmed, calmly.

"Not like Ruth to be late," the younger man offered.

"No..."

"I'll give her a ring, make sure she's alright-"

Harry cut him off. "Her phone's switched off," he said and ignored the half smile that twitched Adam's lips, "she's not answering the house phone either."

Aware that the last, and only, time that Ruth had failed to turn up for work was due to the fact that she had been kidnapped and tied to a banister by someone they had all trusted, a trickle of unease filtered into Adam's stomach. He knew, without having to ask, that Harry had been thinking about that too.

"I'll ask around, see if anyone has heard from her, and let you know," he said, decisively, and headed for the door.

---

"No-one has heard from her," Adam informed him 5 minutes later.

The two men exchanged a look before Harry nodded slowly. "Get the plods to send someone round to her house to see if she's there. In the meantime, I want you to go through everything on Ruth's desk and see if that throws up any possibilities."

"I'll get Jo to check the CCTV and find out what time she left-"

"Five past ten," Harry supplied, choosing to ignore the way Adam's eyebrows rose slightly, "so she should have made it in time for her bus. Get Malcolm to check the CCTV footage for that area and make sure she got on the bus."

"Consider it done."

"I have to go to a meeting in Whitehall," Harry said, regretfully, as he crossed his office and collected his coat from the stand. "I want my phone to ring every fifteen minutes with an update."

---

The patrol car idled to a stop outside Ruth's house and the two officers sat inside peered at the house for a brief moment.

"I hope it's not another sudden death," the male officer sighed.

"Me too. That last one was horrendous," said the female officer as she pulled a face at the memory, "I don't think we have to worry too much though, the occupant's only in her thirties."

Her colleague looked bored. "She probably went out, got pissed, lost her phone and is now sleeping off her hangover."

"Only one way to find out."

He nodded and they both got out of the car and headed for the house. The female officer approached the door and was just about to reach up and ring the bell when something else caught her attention. "Tony, have a look at this," she ordered and her colleague dutifully returned from peering inside the lounge window.

"What's up?" he asked, professional curiosity roused when he noticed his colleague pulling on a pair of latex gloves.

"Is that what I think it is?" she asked, calmly, as she pressed a gloved finger to the wood.

"Oh shit," Tony muttered under his breath as he reached up for his radio. "Echo Romeo Three Two, over," he paused and waited for the go ahead to speak from the control room, "We're going to need to gain entry to the property."

"Echo Romeo Three Two, that's received, on what grounds please?"

"There's a significant smear of blood on the front door, over."

---

"Pearce," answered the authoritative voice on the other end of the phone.

"Harry, the plods have just been on the phone," Adam started before faltering at the sound of someone else trying to talk to Harry. He recognised the tone Harry used to excuse himself and couldn't help but feel a pang of sympathy for the fellow that had interrupted.

"Go on," commanded Harry, a few seconds later, his full attention attuned to his phone call.

"I'm on my way over to Ruth's now," he paused for a split second, "they've found some blood."

The line became deadly silent as Harry swallowed against the fear that had reached up and wound itself around his heart. His hand gripped the phone tighter as he fought to retain his composure.

"Har-"

"I'm on my way," he stated, decisively, before ending the call abruptly and striding out of his meeting.

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**Very evil place to leave it I know but a review will get you the next chapter a lot sooner!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Sorry it's taken so long to update but, with real life getting in the way and then my computer eating most of the chapter, it's been a bit of an effort!**

**Not beta'd so expect errors. I'm just trying to upload whilst I have the chance.**

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"Sorry Sir, but you can't come in here," explained a frightened looking Community Support Officer who had been positioned at Ruth's gate. Harry bit down on his frustration and fished about in his inside jacket pocket for his security pass.

"MI 5," Harry stated, plainly, as he waved the security pass in front of the young man's eyes.

"Oh, right," he sighed, honestly relieved, "sorry. I wasn't told to expect anyone else." He opened the front gate and waved Harry inside.

It was an entirely unpleasant moment of his life as he walked up the path to the front of her house. Everywhere he looked there was an official looking person examining something or other and the professional detachment that usually served him so well had abandoned him in his hour of need. He reached the door and saw the blood and the mishmash of fingerprints highlighted by the silvery dust the forensics team had daubed everywhere.

He felt slightly shaky and disorientated as he stepped into the hallway and flinched at the harsh light of the camera flash as an official photographer clicked away at the mess of Ruth's broken mirror as it lay strewn across the floor. Whatever hope he had been harbouring about feeling better for visiting her house himself evaporated and he was left feeling bereft.

"It's not quite as bad as it looks," Adam stated, quietly, as he stepped into the hallway and saw Harry. The older man turned away from the mess, and the darkness of his own thoughts, and focused on what Adam was saying. "Apart from the mirror, nothing else has been damaged. There's no sign of a struggle anywhere else."

Harry nodded, once, as he digested the information. "What about the blood?"

"What there is of it matches with Ruth's but the smear on the door is all there is. There's enough of it to take a good sample but not enough of it to suggest that she was bleeding heavily as she left." It wasn't much but it was a small measure of comfort to know that she hadn't been seriously injured. "DNA will take a while."

"Make sure it doesn't take too long," Harry ordered, gruffly, stuffing his hands into his pockets to stop himself from lashing out and punching the wall in frustration.

Adam knew better than to point out that he had already ordered the blood analysis be rushed through. "The plods have been doing door to door stuff. No one saw or heard anything untoward."

He took a deep breath and swore quietly. "Not a lot to go on."

"No," Adam agreed, softly.

"Finish off what you need to do here and then get yourself back to the Grid."

---

"Any news?" Jo asked, eagerly, as Harry exited the pods and strode purposefully across the Grid.

"No."

"Oh," she whispered, face crest fallen, "I-I'd hoped..." she trailed off and Malcolm placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

"We all did, Jo."

"Have you managed to go through Ruth's desk?" Harry asked, brusquely, but his gaze was soft as it lingered on the unoccupied desk.

"I'm still compiling the list. Most of the people in these files," she pointed at the large stack of files that now lined her desk, "would have motive, if not means, to...to-"

Harry cleared his throat and cut her off not wanting to have to finish the sentence for her. "Narrow the list down," he ordered, "and when Adam gets back we'll decide which ones to look into first."

"I have a possible lead from the CCTV footage on Ruth's bus home. I had a match from our data recognition programme to a man that was sat a few rows behind her." Harry's jaw clenched and he fought the urge to grab Malcolm by the shoulders and shake the information out of him as the techie dragged Jo's keyboard in front of him and tapped away at the keys. "We'll have to cross check with the list Jo is compiling but this man, Joey Fallon," he pointed to an image of a thin, mean looking man on the screen, "is a known drug dealer and has links with one of the larger gangs in the city."

"Find out everything you can about this man," Harry instructed, "Zaf, get Adam back here. I want everyone working on this."

---

In the 20 minutes it had taken for Adam to return to the Grid the rest of the team had set the ball rolling and were delving into every aspect of Joey Fallon's life. Harry had retreated to his office and, purely for the sake of keeping up appearances, had returned a few phone calls and answered some of his e-mails. It would not do for him to be sat overseeing his officers every move, he had to trust them to do their jobs and bring him the information when they could, but that didn't mean that he wasn't keeping a close eye on the Grid from where he sat. He gripped the pen in his hand tighter as he saw Malcolm's head pop round the door of the forgery suite and beckon Adam over. He'd found something. Never one to wait for an invitation, Harry left his office and calmly walked the few yards to the Forgery Suite.

"Malcolm's found us a location to start our search," an unsurprised Adam explained to Harry.

"I pinged Ruth's phone and the last known location for it was close to Paddington Station at 7.24 this morning."

"Start going through the CCTV footage within a half mile radius of the station and see if that throws anything up. Adam, I want you to-" he was cut off by sounds of commotion coming from the Grid and marched off to investigate.

"Where the hell have you been?" he heard Jo shout and as he rounded the corner he finally understood what was going on. Ruth clearly didn't and was stood frozen like a statue in front of the pods.

"C-Cheltenham," she stuttered out, alarmed by the interrogation from Jo and the number of people looking at her as if she was a ghost.

"Cheltenham. _Oh Cheltenham._ Why the hell didn't we think to look there?" the blonde muttered, sarcastically.

"Jo? I-is everything alright?" she asked, quietly, extremely confused.

"No, it's bloody well not," she whispered and then flung herself at the other woman until Ruth was almost suffocated in a hug.

"Jo? Jo, I can't breathe," Ruth squeaked and a contrite Jo immediately let go of her and wiped the moisture from her eyes. Ruth looked at her oddly and then scanned the rest of the assembled crowd for an explanation. Her eyes met Harry's across the room and immediately began to panic at the look on his face.

"Back to work everyone," he ordered, in a tone of voice that offered no arguments. He waited for a few moments until the rest of his staff started scuttling back to their desks before addressing her. "Ruth, my office. Now."

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**Thanks for reading. A review would make my night.**


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